Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, Are you hey there, Tex Stuff listeners. This
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland and I have got a request for
Speaker 1: all of you. Now. Chris and I have decided that
Speaker 1: we're going to try and experiment. We're doing our first
Speaker 1: crowdsourced episode of tech Stuff and we want to know
Speaker 1: what your pick is for the worst video game of
Speaker 1: all time. Now, nominations you can. You can make one nomination.
Speaker 1: You nominate one game, and you need to tell us
Speaker 1: the name of the game and the platform it was on.
Speaker 1: And it could be any platform. It could be an
Speaker 1: arcade game, it could be a PC, Mac, Xbox, PS three,
Speaker 1: Nintendo handheld console. It can be web based if you like.
Speaker 1: But just you let us know what the platform is
Speaker 1: so we can make sure we count that as the votes.
Speaker 1: So you can nominate your game either through email, which
Speaker 1: is text stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can nominate through Twitter or Facebook. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: put a cut off date on this. I want to
Speaker 1: have the episode go up by the end of September
Speaker 1: of eleven. So let's say you need to get your
Speaker 1: nominations in by September eleven, So if you get those
Speaker 1: nominations into us, we will make sure we include those
Speaker 1: in the process and we will have an episode where
Speaker 1: we give you the worst video games of all time
Speaker 1: based upon the votes of our listeners. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: You can't wait to hear from you. Get in touch
Speaker 1: with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Hello again, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name
Speaker 1: is Chris Poett and I am an editor of how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Sitting and cross from me as
Speaker 1: always is senior writer Jarthans tickling you you didn't leave
Speaker 1: a bar of soap when you left me. You don't
Speaker 1: know that song. I'll introduce it to you afterwards. That's
Speaker 1: the very first line too, so that makes it very
Speaker 1: easy to find that song. We're gonna start this off
Speaker 1: with a little Google Plus suggestion. This comes from Kyle
Speaker 1: who says you could do a podcast on the history
Speaker 1: of Texas instruments. You're right, Kyle, we could do that,
Speaker 1: and in fact we shall. Yes, this this was this
Speaker 1: is a challenge. You know. It's funny with all these
Speaker 1: um with all these different tech companies with the storied past,
Speaker 1: like we did with IBM, and now with Texas Instruments, um,
Speaker 1: you start looking in into their history and wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to it. Yeah, especially when you know
Speaker 1: you can't just say, hey, the company started on this
Speaker 1: date and here's what they did, because it's a little
Speaker 1: more complicated than that. Yep. And um, I promised Jonathan
Speaker 1: a vocoder reference and he wasn't ready for this. Or
Speaker 1: actually it wasn't vocoder so much as it was auto tune.
Speaker 1: We did a podcast on auto tune some time ago,
Speaker 1: and along with the technology for that. Uh. Texas Instruments
Speaker 1: also has a similar history because it began as an
Speaker 1: oil exploration company sort of using seismology in order to
Speaker 1: detect oil deposits. Yeah, yeah, this is really interesting. Let's
Speaker 1: say cast our minds back to n UM. There was
Speaker 1: a company founded by several people, including one Eugene McDermott,
Speaker 1: and the company was called Geophysical Service Incorporated or g
Speaker 1: s I, and this company was specialized in using seismology,
Speaker 1: methodology and equipment in order to search for oil deposits.
Speaker 1: So this is a company that would go out survey
Speaker 1: an area attempt to find whether or not any oil
Speaker 1: maybe underneath that particular area, and then an oil drilling
Speaker 1: company would come in and drill for that oil. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We talked about oil exploration technology and the UM in
Speaker 1: another podcast again UM, and this this also was I
Speaker 1: guess like an early version of the technology we talked
Speaker 1: about then, because what they would do, UM would be
Speaker 1: vibrate the the Earth's surface by setting off little explosions
Speaker 1: called shots. And then what they would do is record
Speaker 1: in time the sound waves that would reflect back in
Speaker 1: order to get a good idea of where the oil was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would give the time between the impact of the
Speaker 1: explosion and the echo would give an indication of what
Speaker 1: the ground below what it was made of, because sound
Speaker 1: will travel at different rates through uh, different medium. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: the echo, Yes, the echo, Yes, the echoes. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this was back in which was sort of an auspicious
Speaker 1: time to be starting a new company. H That was
Speaker 1: back of course you might remember, Um, No, I don't,
Speaker 1: I'm not that old, the Great Depression. No, I I
Speaker 1: just I didn't think it was that great. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a lousy depression. But they did file papers in
Speaker 1: New Jersey to incorporate the company Geophysical Service in May
Speaker 1: in May thirty, May sixteen, specifically, yeah, Well let's let's uh,
Speaker 1: we could talk more about what they did back then,
Speaker 1: but let's really get to the interesting part. So let's
Speaker 1: let's get ahead a little bit. Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to point out that, uh, just a couple little short,
Speaker 1: little interesting facts. You know, Jonathan and I do tend
Speaker 1: to get off on these weird little tangents. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're trying to hold onto Yep. There. They actually changed
Speaker 1: the name of the company in nineteen thirty nine to
Speaker 1: Coronando Corporation because their competitors were a little concerned that
Speaker 1: they might be withholding proprietary information and g s. I was, Uh,
Speaker 1: they had gotten into the business of exploring for oil themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: so they were licensing the technology and a an oil
Speaker 1: company picked up Coronando Corporation. Um. The company actually ended
Speaker 1: up being Amaco, which I think is funny, just a weird.
Speaker 1: Isn't Cora Nando the name of an abba song? No, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of something else, yes, sorry, Um, well, I
Speaker 1: can't hear the drums. However, So Eugene McDermott was one
Speaker 1: of those founders. What he was joined by uh few
Speaker 1: other people including A Cecil H. Green and Jay Eric
Speaker 1: Johnson In nineteen forty one, they bought Geophysical Service Incorporated.
Speaker 1: They purchased the company. Uh. Yeah, they bought it back
Speaker 1: from the oil company. I think the next day there
Speaker 1: was the attack on Pearl Harbor. Yes, exactly. I do
Speaker 1: not suggest. I'm not suggesting in any way that there
Speaker 1: was any correlation between these two events. Yeah. They As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, the quote from t I was
Speaker 1: that if the financing was not completed and in place
Speaker 1: with within ten days by Monday, December eighth, ninety one,
Speaker 1: the say would be terminated, our negotiations would be terminy.
Speaker 1: That was actually the quote from their stuff. In. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're still doing the same thing that they were doing before.
Speaker 1: It is just now it's it's owned by new people.
Speaker 1: In they hire an electrical engineer, um Patrick Haggarty, and
Speaker 1: Haggarty has becomes the general manager of a division of
Speaker 1: Geophysical Service Incorporated called the Laboratory. Look I said laboratory.
Speaker 1: I knew I was practicing, So I wouldn't say laboratory
Speaker 1: over and over the Laboratory and Manufacturing division, so or
Speaker 1: L and M he As a matter of fact, Uh,
Speaker 1: Haggarty had been a lieutenant in the UM I believe
Speaker 1: in the Navy a lieutenant you mean seriously, he was
Speaker 1: the procurement officer for the Magnetic Anomaly Detector project and
Speaker 1: that the m A D project was actually one of
Speaker 1: uh DO physical services. Um I did say that, right, right? Yes,
Speaker 1: I keep thinking t I. That was there one of
Speaker 1: their contributions to the war effort here in the United States.
Speaker 1: So he was already working with the company from the
Speaker 1: military side, so he was already known to them. So
Speaker 1: he was working on the the M A D project, right,
Speaker 1: So he had mad skills. So next all right? Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he joins and L and M. That division starts to
Speaker 1: get lots and lots of business, mainly through military contracts.
Speaker 1: Uh And in fact, it gets so much business that
Speaker 1: it starts to dwarf the exploratory business of G s I.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fifty one, the owners and Haggardy all
Speaker 1: decided to restructure the company and last time. But L
Speaker 1: and M now becomes the major part of the company
Speaker 1: and G s I becomes a division within L and MS.
Speaker 1: So it's the old Switcher rou because before it was
Speaker 1: the the opposite, right, G s I was in charge
Speaker 1: and ellen M was a division. Now ln MS on
Speaker 1: top time. They renamed the company and they call it
Speaker 1: General Instruments Incorporated. General Instruments Major. It was a major disaster. Actually, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: General Instruments. The problem. There was one problem, which was
Speaker 1: that there's another company I believe it was on the
Speaker 1: Eastern seaboard, and I think it was a defense contractor
Speaker 1: that already had that name. So they said, hey, we've
Speaker 1: got that name. You say, why are you so defensive? Right?
Speaker 1: So in nineteen wow, in ninety two, uh, the company
Speaker 1: undergoes a name change to Texas Instruments or t I
Speaker 1: for short. I like that name. I think they should
Speaker 1: stick with it, yeah, and uh, fortunately so did they
Speaker 1: and they did so. Getting back to what they were
Speaker 1: working on before they became t I. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was essentially the same company that would become t I. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their their contracts included things like building up submarine detection
Speaker 1: equipment and uh and radar controlled bomb sites. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about some high tech stuff for the military right now.
Speaker 1: That's really their main customer at this point. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you know, they had plenty of business because first there
Speaker 1: was the aftermath of World War Two, and then there
Speaker 1: was the Korean War, and so the war was keeping
Speaker 1: them going, but they knew that they had to diversify
Speaker 1: in order to become a successful company, and so they
Speaker 1: looked into various other industries they could start to make
Speaker 1: headway into so that they're not just a military defense contractor.
Speaker 1: And one of those industries was the burgeoning vacuum tube industry.
Speaker 1: And we talked about vacuum tubes recently in our Theramin podcast,
Speaker 1: So if you want to learn more about vacuum tubes
Speaker 1: I recommend you you listen to that because they're actually
Speaker 1: we do a quick, down and dirty description of what
Speaker 1: a vacuum tube is and what it does. But in
Speaker 1: Night something happened that really revolutionized the electronics industry, and
Speaker 1: at the time, not everyone saw it as a revolution,
Speaker 1: but it would turn out to be the big thing
Speaker 1: that would that would shape all electronics for that point forward.
Speaker 1: And that was a little invention from Bell Laboratories. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. Maybe it was the transistor.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've touched on the transistor. We've talked
Speaker 1: about transistors a lot in this podcast, so you can
Speaker 1: find plenty of other episodes where we talked about what
Speaker 1: transistors are and what they do. But the the introduction
Speaker 1: of the transistor was a pretty big deal, although again
Speaker 1: not everyone recognized it as such because vacuum tubes did
Speaker 1: the same thing as transistors. They look up more space,
Speaker 1: they gave off a lot more heat, but they were
Speaker 1: they were a proven technology, and the transistor was kind
Speaker 1: of a prototype and and no one really saw a
Speaker 1: way to make it practical from the the first introduction.
Speaker 1: It was more like a curiosity. Yeah, speaking of curiosity,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in learning specifically about transistors, we do
Speaker 1: have an article on the site too by Nathan Chandler
Speaker 1: about how transistors work. Yes, and uh, if you want to. Well,
Speaker 1: the one person who did recognize that the transistor could
Speaker 1: be a big deal, besides the people in Bell laboratories,
Speaker 1: was Haggardy and so he wanted to pursue a license
Speaker 1: from Western Electric to get the Bell transistor. And at
Speaker 1: first their initial requests were denied. And that had to
Speaker 1: do with a lot of different things. For one, Western
Speaker 1: Electric supposedly did not see t I as being capable
Speaker 1: of are actually at this point still uh general it
Speaker 1: was still g s I, but they didn't see g
Speaker 1: s I as being capable of producing transistors in a
Speaker 1: in a manufacturing process. So that was the first reason.
Speaker 1: But there's also there's a complicated relationship with the US
Speaker 1: military where they're Western Electrics being told by one branch
Speaker 1: of the government, you need to keep the transistor under
Speaker 1: wraps because this information, if it got into the hands
Speaker 1: of unfriendly entities, could be very harmful for US. And
Speaker 1: then you had another part of the US government saying,
Speaker 1: you can't sit on this information. That's uh, anti competitive
Speaker 1: and it is hurting industry, so you've got to share it.
Speaker 1: So they were kind of in a tough spot, but
Speaker 1: eventually they got clearance from the government. Western Electric did
Speaker 1: to license the technology of the transistor to any NATO country,
Speaker 1: any any company within a NATO country, and uh, well,
Speaker 1: Texas is in a NATO country because they still haven't
Speaker 1: declared their independence. So Texas Instrument immediately jumped on that
Speaker 1: opportunity and secured a license for the princely sum of
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars, which was a lot of money.
Speaker 1: In it's a lot of money right now. It's not
Speaker 1: as much though, but yes, and uh that was secured
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty one. So then we've got the license
Speaker 1: that is going to give Texas Instrument its foundation for
Speaker 1: business for the foreseeable future. And j. Eric Johnson actually
Speaker 1: said this is a quote. Finally, we have purchased from
Speaker 1: the Western Electric Company a license under which we may
Speaker 1: manufacture transistors and related semiconductor devices. The transistor is a
Speaker 1: very new development, primarily of Bell Telephone Laboratories, which promises
Speaker 1: to revolutionize electronics. It is in a general sort of way,
Speaker 1: a substitute for the vacuum tube. There is little question
Speaker 1: but the transistors and related devices will play an exceedingly
Speaker 1: important part in our future. That way very true, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very very true. And in fact Bell Laboratories held a
Speaker 1: symposium about transistors because it was such a new technology
Speaker 1: that even people who were licensing it really had very
Speaker 1: little knowledge about what what they could do and how
Speaker 1: they were made. Yeah, they jumped right in n three,
Speaker 1: They were going gangbusters on trying to come up with
Speaker 1: new technologies. Um, the Semiconductor Products Division was announced or
Speaker 1: was started in nineteen three, and they produced the first
Speaker 1: commercial silicon transistor in ninety four, also the first germanium
Speaker 1: high frequency transistor. They were they started and uh, you
Speaker 1: know right away, yeah, and it was. It was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, like four of the people, well t I
Speaker 1: sent four people to that symposium I had mentioned. One
Speaker 1: of them was was Haggardy UH and another was a
Speaker 1: fellow named Mark Shepard, who would later on become the
Speaker 1: head of Texas Instruments UM. And they actually watched a
Speaker 1: very very technical presentation from Bell Laboratories. Man I almost
Speaker 1: stood it again Bell Labs. They saw a very technical
Speaker 1: UH symposium and they synthesize that information, brought it back
Speaker 1: and started to really work on things. They had to
Speaker 1: create a device called a crystal pullar because at the
Speaker 1: heart of the transistor is the earliest ones they were
Speaker 1: using was were germanium crystals. And in order to create
Speaker 1: the germanium crystals the the wafers that they would use
Speaker 1: as the foundation for these UH these transistors, they used
Speaker 1: a crystal pullar. And what a crystal pullar is is
Speaker 1: essentially there's a there's a crucible where you melt germanium
Speaker 1: and then what you do is you insert a pure
Speaker 1: germanium crystal seed and you put that into the molten
Speaker 1: germanium mix, and you start rotating the seed and slowly
Speaker 1: withdrawing it from the mix. And you will start to
Speaker 1: create a crystal essentially like a crystal rod um, but
Speaker 1: it's a very exact process and also will have to
Speaker 1: introduce certain impurities into the mix in order to dope
Speaker 1: the material. We've talked about doping semiconductors before, and if
Speaker 1: you haven't, if you're not familiar with that, you should
Speaker 1: probably listen to some of our other episodes. But in general,
Speaker 1: what makes a semi conductor or semiconductor is the doping
Speaker 1: process because a pure uh semiconductor would not really conduct electricity.
Speaker 1: That semiconductor is dope. Wow, we are just insane today anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the crystal poller was a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1: You can actually find some neat illustrations and pictures online
Speaker 1: of these crystal pollers and and they're kind of medieval looking,
Speaker 1: fascinating though fascinating stuff. So, as Chris was saying, they
Speaker 1: started to introduce transistors. The first two they trend they
Speaker 1: introduced never really took off. It was the Type one
Speaker 1: and Type one. And the reason they never really took
Speaker 1: off is the Texas Instruments discovered there was a manufacturing
Speaker 1: problem and so they discontinued pretty quickly, like with it
Speaker 1: less than a year after they had introduced them. But
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three, that's in September, they introduced types
Speaker 1: one oh two and one oh three. Now, what I
Speaker 1: find interesting about these two types of transistors, and we're
Speaker 1: not going to talk about every single transistor t I
Speaker 1: produced because that would that would take several podcasts easily.
Speaker 1: But types one O two and one oh three are
Speaker 1: interesting to me in particular because of a fellow named D. D.
Speaker 1: Mac McBride. So McBride actually manufactured these transistors. He put
Speaker 1: them together by hand. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a
Speaker 1: time consuming process at all. Yeah, he would have to
Speaker 1: look through a microscope and lay out the transistor by hand.
Speaker 1: And uh, using this method, he could produce about thirty
Speaker 1: transistors every two days, so averaging fifteen a day. Not
Speaker 1: the most efficient process. Also, there was no guarantee that
Speaker 1: any two and sistors would have the exact same properties.
Speaker 1: They might have very similar properties, but the crystal pulling
Speaker 1: technique was not so exact as to produce uh, perfect replicans.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you could have you would have a type
Speaker 1: one O two or a Type one oh three transistor.
Speaker 1: You might not necessarily have set out to make a
Speaker 1: one o two versus a one oh three. You were
Speaker 1: making a transistor, and then after you made it, you
Speaker 1: would test the transistor to see what properties it had,
Speaker 1: and then you would categorize it as either a one
Speaker 1: o two or one oh three. It seems like they
Speaker 1: should come up with a process for making that faster
Speaker 1: and more reliable. Well, they did, but it took a while. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also they also experiment with other transistor materials. There
Speaker 1: was something called a grown junction transistor um and you know,
Speaker 1: they're mostly using germanium still at this point, but they
Speaker 1: did start to experiment with silicon. In fact, Texas Instruments
Speaker 1: was one of the first companies to do that. Although
Speaker 1: there are disputes disputed reports about other companies that were
Speaker 1: working on it around the same time, possibly earlier. What
Speaker 1: isn't under any sort of dispute is that Texas Instrument
Speaker 1: launched the first commercial silicon based transistor. Texas Instruments did
Speaker 1: do that, although other companies were working on it at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, they did. They bought some silicon
Speaker 1: material from DuPont Um, the chemical giant, and grew a
Speaker 1: crystal from that apparently was ready to go on April fourteenth,
Speaker 1: ninety four UM and then they announced on May ten
Speaker 1: of that year the the availability of grown junction silicon transistors.
Speaker 1: And around around that same time you might be asking, Okay,
Speaker 1: well they're building all these transistors, who are they building
Speaker 1: them for? Well, that's that's kind of what Texas Instruments
Speaker 1: had to ask. Because there was such a new technology,
Speaker 1: no one had really figured out how to incorporate it,
Speaker 1: uh and Texas Instruments had to take it upon itself
Speaker 1: to teach the world what the transistors could do and
Speaker 1: how they could be used, which to me actually reminds
Speaker 1: me of a lot of modern day electronics companies where
Speaker 1: they'll produce a new device that doesn't seemingly have a
Speaker 1: a space to fill, right, but show off the technology. Right.
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking right now specifically of the iPad, because
Speaker 1: you have the iPad where it was this this device
Speaker 1: that doesn't really fill a gap, like there's not like
Speaker 1: a space in technology where you'd say, oh, I was
Speaker 1: missing this, and then the iPad came along and that
Speaker 1: fills that gap. It doesn't mean that the iPad is
Speaker 1: not useful, and it doesn't mean that it's not a
Speaker 1: great device. It just means that Apple had this uphill battle.
Speaker 1: They had to prove that you want you there would
Speaker 1: be reasons to want one, and they did prove that
Speaker 1: and they were successful at it. Well. Texas Instrument had
Speaker 1: the same problem. They had to prove that the transistor
Speaker 1: was something you would want. And when I say you,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about other companies here, companies that produce other stuff,
Speaker 1: because Texas Instrument its customers were all other companies, not consumers. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: first they struck up a relationship with the Sauna Tone
Speaker 1: Corporation making transistors for hearing aids. Yeah. But the problem,
Speaker 1: as I've mentioned before that hearing aids uh hearing aids
Speaker 1: need a very sort of precise uh electronic circuitry in
Speaker 1: order to work properly clearly in orders for the sound
Speaker 1: that you hear to be in the right range for
Speaker 1: human hearing. Otherwise, of course you're not really helping out.
Speaker 1: It's not hearing aid, it's a it's a hearing detriment.
Speaker 1: So that was a challenge because, like I said, the
Speaker 1: transistors that they were producing didn't all have identical properties,
Speaker 1: so they'd have to play with those quite a bit
Speaker 1: in order to get it to work. Properly, but uh,
Speaker 1: they Haggard he saw the opportunity to go after the
Speaker 1: market by making something specific that would demonstrate the usefulness
Speaker 1: of transistors, and that was the transistor radio, Yes, the
Speaker 1: regency radio t R one, Yeah, which became a huge
Speaker 1: collectors item. And and that was I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a pretty revolutionary product. Here we had a radio that
Speaker 1: used transistors in the in place of vacuum tubes more
Speaker 1: or less, which meant it was a much smaller product
Speaker 1: than the vacuum tube based radios. And uh, you know
Speaker 1: that it took a lot of work on on t
Speaker 1: A t I s part to build a transistor radio
Speaker 1: that had transistors with the right kind of frequencies to
Speaker 1: to actually pick up radio frequencies. It was it was
Speaker 1: a lot of of research and development that went into this.
Speaker 1: Do you know how much they cost when they launched.
Speaker 1: I don't actually I didn't have that part and ninety cents,
Speaker 1: which Haggarty later said might have been a serious mistake
Speaker 1: because they had poured so much money. T I had
Speaker 1: poured so much money into research and development and manufacturing
Speaker 1: to create the the radio that it was a lot
Speaker 1: harder to recapture those expenses through the sale of the radio.
Speaker 1: For one thing, I think they were building the radio
Speaker 1: as a proof of concept and didn't realize how popular
Speaker 1: it was going to be and that they could have
Speaker 1: charged more money and sold just as many units. Uh
Speaker 1: so they said that this actually haggard, He said, the
Speaker 1: facts are that at sixty dollars or sixty five dollars,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have made an iota of difference, meaning that
Speaker 1: people would have bought it just as just as many.
Speaker 1: And so that was one of t i's mistakes. In
Speaker 1: a way, it was incredibly successful, but they failed to
Speaker 1: capitalize on its success at the rate that they could have. Wow,
Speaker 1: well this is uh, it's funny. Twenty three minutes and
Speaker 1: we're still in the nineteen fifties. Yeah, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to speed up. Uh yeah, well it's not gonna happen
Speaker 1: with nine because, um then we start talking about an
Speaker 1: inventor who was on the payroll at Texas Instruments. But
Speaker 1: you know, there was an annual two week company wide
Speaker 1: vacation that everyone had, but well most people had, but
Speaker 1: new employees didn't. Uh, not that if they had an
Speaker 1: accrude vacation time. So somebody who was still putting around
Speaker 1: puttering around the office during this company wide vacation. Guy
Speaker 1: named Jack Kilby Jack st. Clair Kilby six ft six
Speaker 1: inches tall, eats redwoods for breakfast, bats left throws right now.
Speaker 1: Kilby was a mountain of a man. Wait what anyway,
Speaker 1: six ft six inches tall, as much taller than I am. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, but I just wasn't expecting that. Yeah he was.
Speaker 1: He was looking for a way to miniaturized circuits, and
Speaker 1: he figured out that a semiconductor, uh, would make things
Speaker 1: more cost effective. Yeah, a wafer semiconductor where you would
Speaker 1: build the circuit elements directly onto the wafer. Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like a reasonably decent idea. Yeah. We call
Speaker 1: this this idea now the integrated circuit, and Kilby was
Speaker 1: the first person to produce such a circuit. It was
Speaker 1: a revel again, another revolutionary idea. So the transistor if
Speaker 1: if you call the transistor the basis of modern electronics,
Speaker 1: the integrated circuit fills a role in pretty much every
Speaker 1: electronic device you can think of. So modern day computers
Speaker 1: would not really exist without the integrated circuit, not not
Speaker 1: as we know them now. Uh. Calculators video game consoles, microwaves,
Speaker 1: like tons of things out there rely on integrated circuits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe the sketches that he made in his notebook
Speaker 1: survives still and t I UH with with their UH
Speaker 1: company somewhere. I'm pretty sure because there's actually a picture
Speaker 1: of him on the t I website holding up the notebook.
Speaker 1: He actually delivered a They had him wire up a
Speaker 1: circuit and bring it in, uh, you know, to demonstrate,
Speaker 1: and he did that in August. They said, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it looks like it will work. Go ahead and put
Speaker 1: it together. You know, let's let's make a few of
Speaker 1: these and see what happens. Yea, And yeah, he demonstrated it,
Speaker 1: uh demonstrated actually working on September twelve, and apparently he
Speaker 1: he has said after that he said that, um, he
Speaker 1: would have prettied it up a little if he had
Speaker 1: known that that was going to be held up as
Speaker 1: the first integrated circuit. He kind of, you know, as
Speaker 1: an engineer, he was building something that would work first.
Speaker 1: So it's not the U not the most elegant design,
Speaker 1: but it not at least from an esthetic point of view,
Speaker 1: but from an actual engineering point of view, it's remarkable. Oh,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, and he would be honored many many, many,
Speaker 1: many many times. Yes, um And around this time, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you see some other stuff that was going on. Right
Speaker 1: around the same time that the integrated circuits being developed.
Speaker 1: Uh t I landed some major supply contracts with another
Speaker 1: company that we've mentioned before, um at IBM, which was
Speaker 1: a big deal. And also uh t I tried to
Speaker 1: show the the well the potential for a transistor based
Speaker 1: portable television. They actually went out bought a portable TV
Speaker 1: that existed using vacuum tubes, stripped it out, rebuilt it
Speaker 1: using transistors, and demonstrated it, although the television manufacturers didn't
Speaker 1: really jump on board with that because they didn't think
Speaker 1: that the world was ready for such a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now are a brief episode out of our show
Speaker 1: within a show stuff what goes Beep? October four, nine seven.
Speaker 1: Of course, sput Nick was launched into space, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen eight, uh the United States launched Explore one, which
Speaker 1: had t I transistors on board to help it go
Speaker 1: deep and discover the magnetic radiation belt around the Earth.
Speaker 1: That's all it did. Yeah, no, no big whoop, right,
Speaker 1: but it was only doing science in space. Good stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think, well, we're coming up on what twenty
Speaker 1: eight minutes now, Yeah, we're coming up on twenty eight minutes,
Speaker 1: and we've got a ton of stuff to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think I think we do apart one and A
Speaker 1: part two. How about you? Okay? Yeah, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: All right? Cool, So we're gonna we're gonna stop here
Speaker 1: in It's ninety eight, isn't it. I think so? All right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna stop in nineteen fifty eight and we
Speaker 1: will pick up when we left off in our next episode,
Speaker 1: Texas Instruments Part two. So guys, uh, if you want
Speaker 1: to hear more about other companies, you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about IBM, and we've talked about Texas Instruments, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna continue to do that. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: about other companies, let us know. You can send us
Speaker 1: an email. That address is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or you can drop us a line
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Facebook. Our handle at both of those
Speaker 1: is text Stuff each sw and Chris and I will
Speaker 1: have to again about Texas Instruments really soon. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join How Stuff Work staff, As we explore the most
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